I remember reading on Slate a few months ago an article comparing two different markets. One was McAllen, Texas (I remember it because that's where my 360 went to be repaired and it pained me to imagine the woman I spoke to on the phone with the gorgeous accent was probably a chronically obese diabetic) which has the highest healthcare costs in the country and among the crappiest actual health in the country, and the other was somewhere (I forget where exactly because they had nothing to do with fixing my 360 so screw them) where it was all run by the Mayo Clinic and they got better treatment for less.

In Texas all the doctors were partners in the actual hospitals so they had a vested interest in ordering as many tests and treatments as possible.

Here's the article in question, from the New Yorker, via Slate. It's long, but fascinating.

http://tinyurl.com/qwh8yg